‘I rang. I didn’t leave a message,’ he said.
And you thought I’d know to pick up zucchini, like a psychic? Seriously? ‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said, with an exasperated sigh. It clearly did matter.
‘I can go and get some. The store on the corner will still be open. I can take Bill for a walk while I’m at it.’
‘No, this will be ready in five minutes.’
Alice doubted that. Where David’s abilities in the kitchen often fell short, his timing in the kitchen was absolutely appalling. They had been known to have main course split into two, twenty minutes apart – meat for one course and then the vegetables – because David could never get the cooking times right.
‘Okay.’ She settled on a stool at the bench to watch him, which he loved her doing, though she couldn’t understand why when he was so inept. ‘How was your day?’ she asked.
‘Pretty good. There’s talk of a reshuffle of the team.’
‘Oh, right. Is that good?’
‘Could be. Bit early to tell.’
‘How was Bill when you got home?’
‘Okay. Sitting on his bed.’
‘I came home earlier and took him for a walk.’
‘Yes, Todd rang me. He’s really disappointed you didn’t take the job.’ And so am I, were the unspoken words his demeanour told her.
‘Did he tell you what happened?’ she said, trying to keep the rising note of defensiveness from her voice.
‘Yes, he did.’ Though clearly it didn’t mean anything to David.
‘I’m not working for an unpredictable git like that.’
‘It was a good opportunity, Alice.’
‘So you’ve said. Please don’t scold me like I’m a child, David. You weren’t there. Hell, Todd wasn’t even there! So don’t tell me what’s fine and what’s not.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘It’s written all over your face. You’re disappointed in me.’ David might not raise his voice, but that look of disappointment could wound like a knife. Alice felt its cut now. ‘Well, be disappointed in Aaron bloody Troubridge – he’s the fool who can’t keep his temper in check!’
‘Alice, calm down. I only said …’
Yes, but it’s what you’re not saying, she thought.
‘Right, here we are. Dinner is served,’ he said placing two plates on the stone bench top. ‘Steak and green peppercorn sauce,’ he added proudly.
‘This looks great. Thank you,’ Alice said, truthfully. David’s plating was perfect – neat and beautiful – though Alice’s appetite was waning.
‘So, are you going to go back to temping full-time now? We can’t afford for you to be …’
‘Be what? Slacking off? Not pulling my weight?’ Alice was annoyed.
‘It’s tight, Alice, that’s all I’m saying,’ he said, as he attacked his meal.
Alice cut a square of steak, speared it with her fork, added a scoop of mashed potato and pushed a piece of almost raw carrot onto the pile before putting it into her mouth. They ate in silence. Out of the corner of her eye Alice noticed Bill nearby watching them intently.
‘Did you feed Bill?’ she asked between mouthfuls.
‘Why would I have fed him?’
Why wouldn’t you?
Alice got up without a word. After pouring the right amount of food into his bowl, she spent a moment ruffling the dog’s ears before returning to her own meal.
‘I got a new job today, actually,’ she said nonchalantly, as she settled back onto her stool.
‘A temp assignment?’ David said, not looking up.
‘No, a proper job. PA to Carmel Gold, lead partner at Gold, Taylor and Murphy Real Estate.’
‘Really?’ He shot her a little sideways glance as if disbelieving.
‘Yes. They rang me to come in for an interview and offered me the job on the spot,’ she said, allowing herself to sound a little haughty. So there!
‘How much?’
She stood up and retrieved the document from her compendium in her tote bag and handed it to him.
‘They’re adding super and five thousand and will email an updated version – hence the handwritten note. I start Monday.’ David ignored the two pages of terms and conditions and went straight to the salary.
‘Not bad,’ he said, with a lot less awe than his expression revealed.
‘Yes. I negotiated the additions.’
‘Well done, you,’ he said. ‘Oh, Alice, that’s great. I’m proud of you.’ He gathered her to him.
Proud maybe, she thought, but more like relieved your freeloading partner is finally going to be contributing properly.
‘Thanks,’ she said. Alice knew she should be thrilled, but she wasn’t quite. A small part of her yearned for a job in the field of history and historical research, or to still be enjoying university life. She could continue studying online in her own time if she really wanted, but it wouldn’t be the same. She missed the student lifestyle – the coming and going to uni, and not being answerable to a boss. And the challenge of striving for and getting great grades. Though she was excited about her goal of being the best damned PA Carmel Gold had ever had, and then a fine real estate agent when the time came.
‘They’re actually going to train me to sell real estate, too,’ Alice added.
‘Now you’re talking!’ David said, not hiding any of his awe. They’d both commented on the prestige cars parked outside all the properties they’d visited over the past months. It was clear people selling property in Melbourne made money – serious money.
Chapter Six
On Monday morning Alice was already exhausted when she arrived in the city for her first day at Gold, Taylor and Murphy Real Estate. She’d been unable to sleep and had got up extra early to see David off on an overseas trip. She liked that her train was a comfortable five-minute walk away from the office, though.
She reached the large Bourke Street tower block ten minutes early, so she took a stroll around to get her bearings and see what amenities were close to her new workplace. She discovered that everything she would need seemed to be within a one-block radius of her office – dentist, pharmacy, supermarket, chiropractor, physio, and a multitude of restaurants and cafés of varying degrees of quality and presence. She paused at the window of a doctor’s surgery. She wondered if that was the place where Steph from uni was working. She’d said she was a part-time receptionist and admin assistant at a doctor’s surgery in the north-west corner of the city. It would be nice to have someone she knew nearby. Though she’d meet plenty of nice people soon, she thought as she arrived at reception right on the dot of nine o’clock. She’d been surprised to find she was the only person in the lift coming up.
‘Hi, Bianca,’ Alice said brightly to the receptionist. ‘Good weekend?’
‘Hi, Alice. Yes, thanks, nice and relaxing.’
‘Lovely.’
‘So you didn’t change your mind about working here, then?’
‘No. Here I am. Now, I have the signed employment contract and the banking details form. And here are the details for my super fund,’ Alice said, handing the documents over to Bianca. ‘I think that’s all. Let me know if I’ve missed anything.’ Alice cursed her clammy hands and just hoped the pages didn’t show signs of damp fingerprints. Damn being so nervous!
‘Great. I think you’ve got everything. I’ll do you a copy to keep for your records,’ Bianca said, turning around and lifting the lid of a small photocopier beside her. ‘There you go. I’m sure it’s all in order. Now, sign here for your pass,’ she said, giving Alice a lanyard and pushing a clipboard towards her. ‘And just wait over there. Jen’s going to give you your orientation and get you settled. She should be here any second.’
‘Brilliant. Thanks. Thanks for everything.’
God, how many times was she going to use the word ‘thanks’, Alice thought. But what could one say instead? And manners were important to her. As she settled into the chair, she too
k several deep breaths. Her heart had been thudding hard but was finally started to slow. She watched as the doors to the three lifts opened and closed and throngs of noisy people flooded into reception – some in company livery, plenty not – and then filed through the frosted-glass doors, chatting as they went. Alice hoped before too long that would be her – catching up with her workmates on a Monday morning, and perhaps some becoming friends.
Having been bullied right through high school for being quiet and studious, the thought of making new friends was always a source of anxiety for Alice. She’d felt that way when she’d started at Outercover and also on her first day at uni. She’d stood there just to the side of the imposing quadrangle, a smile on her face to hide the jangle of nerves and uncertainty eating her up. She’d felt so old as she’d cringed while watching the drunken antics of the students enjoying O Week – the ‘kids’ sculling beer and doing silly things to earn themselves more freebies. She’d sipped on an iced coffee while she tried not to look as lost or out of place as she felt. And then she’d heard a thick English accent right beside her.
‘I’m too old for that shit.’
Alice turned, already grinning. ‘I was just thinking the same thing. Makes me ill just thinking about a hangover,’ she said.
‘Who even drinks alcohol at ten in the morning? I’m Lauren, by the way,’ said the woman, who was a few years younger than Alice. She thrust her hand out to Alice. They were both tall and stood out above the throngs of other students.
Lauren and Alice had talked for the next hour or so and gradually three other women and two men of around their age and older joined them, each making comments about being too old or declaring knowledge about how the young things would suffer later. They laughed about being sensible, mature-age students. And just like that a little group with Alice and Lauren at the centre had been formed. Eventually someone said they were too old to be standing up for hours and too wise to sit down on cold concrete, and the group meandered towards the nearest café. It turned out they were all taking different courses and so for the next three years Alice always had at least one friend on campus to catch up with when she wanted to, as well as the other students in her Arts subjects.
The group grew to around fifteen and had a dedicated Facebook page. Apart from an annual Christmas get-together, which included partners, they tended to keep their socialising confined to campus, with a regular Friday lunch catch-up. Being mature age there seemed to be a collective understanding that they were there to study more than to build a social life or really close friendships – they each had a separate life outside of university. Also, they were all living in different directions and varying distances away from campus. Oh how she missed them.
Other than her studies, Alice’s world centred on David because she still felt like a newcomer to Melbourne, and after the experience with Shannon, she was wary of forming really deep friendships. But Alice and Lauren kept finding themselves catching the same tram, and over conversations to and from university a close bond had formed. Alice hadn’t seen a lot of her in the last few weeks as her time had been taken up with moving house, so she made a vow to remedy that by inviting Lauren around to her new home soon. There had been an off-campus catch-up lunch for the group at a city pub a few weeks ago, but Alice had been working at Outercover and couldn’t go along. It was the end of an era. But it doesn’t have to be sad or bad. Change is good, Alice thought. Why not set up a weekend catch-up and see who wants to come? Maybe she wasn’t the only one who was missing the camaraderie.
Yes, I’ll do it, she decided, just as she heard her name called.
She looked up to find a beaming young woman with bright red hair and matching red glasses frames standing nearby.
‘Hi, yes,’ Alice said, leaping up.
‘I’m Jen.’
‘Jen, lovely to meet you,’ Alice said, pumping the offered hand enthusiastically.
‘Welcome to Gold, Taylor and Murphy,’ she said in an English accent Lauren would have described as ‘well posh’.
‘Thanks.’
‘I’m to show you the ropes.’
‘Great.’ Alice felt herself relax.
She took several more deep breaths and then blushed when Jen said, ‘Yeah, terrifying being the newbie, huh? But you’ll be fine.’ She had clearly noticed Alice’s anxiety.
‘We don’t bite. Well, most of us don’t,’ she added with a laugh. ‘Right. I need to put my lunch in the fridge, so we may as well start with the kitchen. Word to the wise, the food court downstairs is a rip-off and had a health department issue of some sort last year. I always bring my own.’
‘Me too,’ Alice said. ‘My partner and I have just bought our first house so we’re counting the pennies.’
‘My partner and I are counting ours too, but for a different reason. We’re pommy backpackers – hence the accent. We’re working our way around this fine country of yours. Off up north on Saturday before the cold weather comes in.’
‘Oh, that’s great. How exciting,’ Alice said as her heart sank.
‘Oops, hang on. Almost forgot,’ Jen said, with her hand on one of the glass doors Alice had noticed earlier. ‘Toilets are out here,’ she said, turning back and pointing. Then she pushed the door open. It closed with a whoosh and then a thump after them. ‘Now, take note. It’s easy to get disoriented. We’ve come in from the door to the left as you leave the lifts. The lifts and reception are in the centre and us worker bees are around the outside. At least we get a window, huh? Anyway, if you’re anything like me you’ll take a wrong turn or go too far and regularly end up doing a full loop. Take note of the view out the window as a way of getting your bearings because all the desks look the same and people change the stuff on their desks all the time, so that’s a useless point of reference. You’ll see.
‘There’s only one kitchen. Label your lunch and put it into the fridge early and then hope for the best.’ Jen extracted a lunchbox from her oversized handbag and opened the fridge.
Alice followed suit.
‘Oh, you’re organised,’ she said, looking approvingly at Alice’s labelled container filled with cheese, crackers, celery, carrots, nuts and sultanas. ‘Not your first rodeo, huh, isn’t that what you Aussies say?’
‘Something like that, yes,’ Alice said with a laugh.
‘We’ll come back for a coffee in a bit. Give the rush a chance to die down. First I want to show you right around so hopefully you won’t get as lost as I did the first few days I was here. Maybe you’re better than me with direction, but it can’t hurt to be sure.’
‘No, good idea. I appreciate it.’ Alice followed Jen along the corridor, stopping every few steps to be introduced, losing count of the times Jen said, ‘Hi, ya’ or ‘This is Alice, Carmel’s new PA – you’re going to have to look after her when I’m gone,’ and high-fived people. A part of Alice missed her already.
‘God, I wish everyone wore name tags,’ Alice whispered when they paused to check the view and get their bearings.
‘Don’t worry, they’ll understand. We’ve all been a newbie at some point. Now,’ Jen said, opening another set of glass doors. ‘Here we are back at reception, only the opposite side to where we went in. Got it?’
‘Yep. Got it.’ Alice felt as if she’d walked miles of corridor.
‘So, we’re halfway – kitchen is right across there, through that door.’
‘This place is huge.’
‘Yeah. We’ve got the whole floor – two actually, but marketing and advertising are down one. You’ll cover that another day. Oh, and management don’t like us walking across reception. Apparently it’s not a good look in front of clients.’
Perhaps they shouldn’t have toilets in reception, then, Alice thought, but kept it to herself.
‘Okay, so now to where you’ll be spending most of your time,’ Jen said, closing the glass door and heading further along the corridor. ‘And here we are,’ she finally said after many more stops to greet people and introduce Alice
.
‘Nice,’ Alice said, walking over to check the view out the window. She reckoned they were overlooking Flagstaff Gardens and in the distance she could see the Queen Victoria Markets.
‘Yes,’ Jen said, ‘it’s quite something. But don’t get caught looking at it for long. There’s a reason we’re positioned with our backs to it – and it’s not so the light’s over your shoulder, if you know what I mean. Okay, so dump your stuff,’ Jen continued without giving Alice a chance to answer. ‘Now we’ll get coffee. I’m not trying to teach you anything without caffeine,’ she said, picking up a mug from her desk. She reached into the top drawer of the filing cabinet under the desk and took out another mug. ‘Lose sight of your mug and it’s gone,’ she warned. ‘I’ll be taking mine with me but this one will be yours,’ she said, holding up the one with the company logo. ‘Whatever you do, don’t put it in the dishwasher if you ever want another coffee again. They disappear like socks in the wash.’
‘Got it,’ Alice said, smiling. How much fun is Jen?
‘You might have guessed, coffee’s a wee bit important to me,’ she said with a laugh. ‘I can get quite ferocious without my fix, can’t I, Pip?’ she said to a young blonde woman who had just arrived on the other side of the partition. Is everyone around here twelve and glamorous? Alice suddenly felt very old, and frumpy. They were all so well dressed. Alice was neat and tidy, and her height helped, but these girls looked like they’d strayed in from the Myer Fashion Week catwalk.
A Life of Her Own Page 5